The American Dental Association recommends that all children have an orthodontic screening no later than age 7.
Things have changed since you were growing up. Orthodontic evaluation wasn’t mentioned until you had all your permanent teeth. When you finally received a comprehensive orthodontic evaluation, you might have had teeth extracted because there was not enough room for all of them or may have had to wear braces for a long period of time.
There is a better way and Dr. Lee’s team has been using it for years. It’s called early treatment or interceptive orthodontics and in about 95% of the cases where teeth would have to be pulled it was avoid, by using safe, painless growth appliances.
There are a lot of growth issues that can be addressed while children are growing, when they hit puberty most of their growth is done and it is a missed opportunity to correct problems that will occur in the future.
Some things to look out for are:
- Overbite – upper front teeth overlap lower teeth
- Deepbite – upper front teeth cover up lower teeth when biting down
- Underbite – lower front teeth overlap upper teeth
- Openbite – upper and lower teeth do not come together when
biting down - Spacing – gaps between the teeth
- Midlines Off – the middles of the upper and lower front teeth
do not line up - Crossbite – lower teeth or tooth is on the inside of the upper teeth
- Crowding – crowding is when you see twist and turns of the teeth or teeth may come in front of or back of other teeth.
Benefits of early treatment can make an enormous difference of the overall outcome of your child’s orthodontic experience and self-esteem. It encourages jaw growth in a safe, painless manor that allows a child to avoid extractions, improve oral hygiene, correct underbites and overbites with little effort on their part once they are use to the appliance and the routine of taking care of it.
Extractions
It is the doctors goal to avoid extractions of primary (baby) or permanent teeth if at all possible, however in some cases it is unavoidable even with early treatment attempts. When the jaw is extra narrow and there are large permanent teeth, it is necessary to remove teeth in order to straighten them and get the nicest result. Primary teeth need to be removed sometimes in order to help permanent teeth erupt. Once again it is the doctors’ goal to avoid any unnecessary extractions of baby teeth as well as permanent teeth.